Viktor Baranov is the main counterfeiter of the Soviet Union! Viktor Ivanovich Baranov is the most famous counterfeiter of the USSR.

King of counterfeiters Soviet Union often called Viktor Ivanovich Baranov. He stands apart among the well-known manufacturers of counterfeit money in Russia.

Experienced police officers admit that “there are no more artists of this level,” although experts have to deal with much more advanced fakes. The Central Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs even had a special stand dedicated to the activities of Viktor Baranov.
He grew up in the Moscow region, in a wealthy family. Mom is a sales worker, father is an employee of the prosecutor's office. As a child, Victor looked at banknotes with admiration Tsarist Russia. He was sixteen when the family moved to the Stavropol region. Victor studied at an art school. “After all, the blood of an artist flows in me,” says Baranov. “My uncle, who was burned in a tank at the front, was an artist. And before the army I painted pictures - “Alyonushka”, “Three Hunters”, went out into the open air, painted from life.” After serving in the army, Victor got a job as a freight forwarder in Stavropol region party committee, which headed future president USSR Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev.
The work did not bring Baranov creative satisfaction - his extraordinary inventive abilities were not used. He proposed an original solution to the problem of potato sorting to the Committee on Inventions under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. He was refused under a far-fetched pretext, saying that the application was completed incorrectly. Baranov tried to introduce folding boxes for transporting glass containers at the winery, but chief engineer dismissed the inventor as if he were an annoying fly.
What prompted him to take up the production of counterfeit money? Many researchers of the Baranov Case believe that it was a thirst for profit, easy enrichment. Viktor Ivanovich himself says that he wanted to challenge Goznak and did not intend to flood the country with fakes.
From Baranov’s testimony: “At first I decided to penetrate the secret of printing - both high and intaglio. I went to the regional library named after. M.Yu. Lermontov, where he was registered, and began to take for reading, or rather, viewing, various books on printing. But I didn’t find anything I needed. Then the book “Entertaining Electroplating Engineering” fell into my hands. In this book, a description of a photosensitive solution was made. This was around 1971. Due to the nature of my work, I had to visit the printing house of the publishing house of the newspaper “Stavropolskaya Pravda”, where I had the opportunity to see letterpress clichés. While visiting the printing house, I began collecting various papers there, believing that they could serve as samples for research. I understood that a primitive approach to solving this problem would not yield results. Therefore, I soon went to Moscow to the Library. Lenin for the study of printed literature."
Baranov set up a workshop in a barn next to his house. He understood what a difficult task he had set himself. But he had plenty of wit. For example, he tried to engrave printed forms using... a dental drill.
The work was in full swing when Baranov was suddenly called to the police! Has he been exposed?

Baranov came to the Stavropol police department expecting the worst. But he was worried in vain. The head of the personnel department invited him to drive the general, the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Stavropol Territory. Baranov at that time worked as a driver at the motor depot of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU, among his responsible “clients” was First Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Viktor Ivanovich refused the flattering offer.
After a visit to the police, Baranov realized that his secluded lifestyle could arouse suspicion among his comrades. He began to visit friends more often and relax more.
It took him four years to learn how to make watermarks and paper similar to Gosznak’s, two and a half years to select ink for intaglio printing, and another year to prepare the ink composition for letterpress printing. He ordered parts for the equipment piece by piece from friends at Stavropol enterprises. I bought chemicals secondhand at a transformer plant.
It was believed that it was almost impossible to reproduce the security grid on banknotes - complex patterns superimposed on each other. Externally, the patterns looked like faded stains. Baranov, having “dismantled” the protective mesh layer by layer, was surprised to discover images of lions and mythical animals. He invented an installation for applying watermarks, a ball mill for fine grinding of dyes, and designed printing press, came up with a unique composition for etching copper. “Several of my shirts simply rotted during these twelve years of searching,” says the king of counterfeiters. “I could sit in the barn for a day or two.” Baranov went to work at the fire department to be on duty every other day. The first bill printed by Baranov was in denomination of fifty rubles. The banknote turned out very similar to the original, only Lenin was young. He went to Krasnodar, where he exchanged 70 counterfeit bills without any problems. When the technology for making fifty-ruble notes was brought to perfection, the counterfeiter decided to start counterfeiting the most popular and complex banknote - 25 rubles. “If the ruble were the most difficult, I would make the ruble,” says Baranov. “I was absolutely not interested in money, I was looking for an opportunity to prove myself.”
Protection Soviet money was carried out at a high technical level. If Baranov didn’t succeed in some technical nuances, for example, the number was not printed, it burned the bill. It was painstaking work, coupled with the talent of the inventor. Only in 1974 did the counterfeiter manage to start issuing 25-ruble banknotes...
Baranov exchanged counterfeit bills at markets in nearby cities, but not in Stavropol. Life was getting better. He paid off his debts, bought a car, bought jewelry for his wife. According to Baranov, he constantly felt remorse for deceiving the state. The idea of sending his preparations to the police more than once occurred to him. But the counterfeiter was afraid that he would be immediately arrested and sent to prison for a long time.
One day a funny incident happened to him. Baranov with another batch of money (according to investigators, about 5,000 rubles) went to sell them in Crimea. Having bought tomatoes on the street from some grandmother in Simferopol, he headed to a telephone booth, forgetting his briefcase with money. Having already moved a decent distance, he grabbed the money and rushed back. But neither the grandmother, nor even the briefcase was there. Thus, trading tomatoes brought the nimble resident of Simferopol 5,000 rubles of pure profit.
Baranov did not suspect that with his fakes he had caused a real stir among the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB. Of course! In the period from 1974 to 1977 in Moscow, Kyiv, Chisinau, Riga, Vilnius, Yerevan, Tashkent, when opening collection bags in banks, 46 counterfeit 50-ruble notes and 415 counterfeit 25-ruble notes were discovered. Experts from Goznak and State Bank came to the conclusion that the banknotes were printed in one place, and it is impossible to produce counterfeits of this level using a homemade method. They suspected insidious capitalists who, by injecting counterfeit rubles, intended to undermine the economic power of the Soviet Union. Another version was also developed: one of the Goznak employees sold the technology for making money “outside.”
There were all sorts of rumors about how Baranov screwed up. In fact, it was simple negligence that ruined him. While securing the cliche to create a protective net, the counterfeiter did not pay attention to the fact that the cliche was upside down, and in the place where the wave should have had a rise, there was a descent. Baranov did not reject the batch. However, in one of the banks the cashier noticed this discrepancy.
The bulk of counterfeits with similar printing defects were discovered in the Stavropol region. Orientations were sent throughout the region. Hundreds of police officers took part in the operation. On April 12, 1977, Baranov was detained at the collective farm market in the city of Cherkessk while selling another batch of counterfeits. The vigilant merchant, to whom he offered to exchange two banknotes, immediately let the operative on duty know. During a personal search, 77 counterfeit banknotes worth 1,925 rubles were seized from Baranov. His sincere confession allowed the investigative department of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Region of the Stavropol Territory to add to case No. 193 another hundred criminal cases opened on the facts of detection in different cities counterfeit money...
At Baranov’s home they found a counterfeit 50-ruble bill, more than three hundred 25-ruble bills, and about nine hundred blanks. In addition, cliches, homemade printing presses, a set of equipment for making paper, equipment for applying watermarks, and an entire library of literature on printing and electrical engineering were confiscated from him. “By the time of my arrest, all my equipment had been dismantled,” says Baranov. “I was going to drive through ponds and lakes and scatter it there piece by piece.” I didn’t throw it away only because it’s April and it’s muddy and you can’t get through it. And thank God. Otherwise, divers would have to look for these parts at the bottom of reservoirs.”
Baranov spent the first ten days after his arrest in the Stavropol bullpen, then he was transferred to a pre-trial detention center. The report on the long-awaited capture of the counterfeiter landed on the desk of Minister of Internal Affairs Shchelokov. Higher ranks they refused to believe that one person at home could organize the production of counterfeits of such quality. At the Stavropol Department of Internal Affairs, Baranov was asked to demonstrate his abilities. According to the counterfeiter, during his “work” they constantly tried to “catch” him. Instead of the requested solution, they brought another one. But when the officers saw the appearance of the watermark with their own eyes, doubts disappeared: it was him!
From the Stavropol pre-trial detention center, Baranov was transported to Moscow, to Butyrka. Every day he was visited by specialists, to whom he demonstrated his inventions. A Goznak technologist wrote: “Manufactured by V.I. Baranov. counterfeit banknotes in denominations of 25 and 50 rubles are close in appearance to genuine banknotes and are difficult to identify in circulation. That is why this counterfeit was very dangerous and could cause distrust of the population in genuine banknotes.”
Viktor Baranov revealed the secret of a solution that etched copper much faster than it was done in the Goznak printing house (under the name “Baranovsky solvent” it will be used in production for fifteen years). In a letter addressed to the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, the counterfeiter outlined recommendations on ten pages for improving the protection of rubles from counterfeiting...
Probably, Viktor Ivanovich told the competent authorities a lot of useful things if the execution sentence was replaced with a colony. On March 10, 1978, the Stavropol Regional Court sentenced Baranov to 12 years in prison for producing about 1,300 units of counterfeit banknotes. The number 12 miraculously haunted him for many years: on April 12, 1977, he was arrested, worked on forgeries for 12 years, lived before in apartment 12 square meters. After serving his sentence, Baranov returned to Stavropol. Knowing about Viktor Ivanovich’s talent, all sorts of people flocked to him “ business people" They proposed issuing counterfeit excise stamps, seals, and false documents. But Baranov was completely done with his past; he wanted to engage in legal developments. “The meaning of human life is creative work,” he believes. “What was given to me, I realized, even if I had to endure a lot of suffering and serve time.”

Viktor Baranov is a unique personality in the history of Soviet crime. He managed, single-handedly and in a makeshift way, to launch the production of counterfeit banknotes, which were extremely difficult to distinguish from the real ones. Who is he - a criminal or a brilliant artist-inventor?

Inventions that no one needs

Viktor Ivanovich Baranov was born in 1941 in Moscow, into a family of officials. Later, his family moved to live in the Stavropol Territory. The boy became interested in paper money as early as early childhood. He even began collecting a collection of antique banknotes.

Vitya studied well not only in secondary school, but also in art. It is interesting that he not only drew talentedly, but also made high-quality copies of famous paintings.

After graduating from the seven-year school, Baranov entered the construction school in Rostov-on-Don and received the profession of a parquet carpenter. After returning from the army, he took up inventing, offering his projects to Stavropol enterprises. But factories and factories refused to implement them: no one was interested in modernizing production processes.

That’s when the idea came to Baranov’s mind to start issuing counterfeit money. He was going to do this not for the sake of enrichment, but out of love for art. He wanted to see if he could copy government banknotes so that they could not be distinguished from the original.

Printing press in a barn

To find necessary information, Victor went to Moscow to the Lenin Library. He set up the “workshop” in a shed in the courtyard of his own house. The first 50-ruble bills that Baranov printed on the machine he assembled were superior in quality to those printed at Goznak. Therefore, we had to deliberately degrade the workmanship to make them look real.

Having “issued” about 70 fifty-ruble bills, Victor took up 25-ruble banknotes. This banknote was the most secure, and Baranov was curious whether he would be able to copy it.

Not a single one knew about Baranov’s “hobby.” living soul. He was an exemplary family man, worked as a driver in the garage of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU, and at one time even drove Mikhail Gorbachev, who then held the post of regional committee secretary... True, the neighbors noticed that Victor spent too much time in the barn. But those who sometimes looked there could only contemplate an ordinary metalworking machine and equipment for photo printing. Baranov kept the money printing machine disassembled under the workbenches.

Victor spent only small quantity printed banknotes - as a rule, he used them to purchase new tools and equipment. His family lived quite modestly; there was not even a TV in the house. True, during all the years of “production” they made one major acquisition - they bought a Niva car.

Detention and new life

By the mid-70s, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB came to the conclusion that a gang of counterfeiters was operating in the country. About 500 counterfeit large banknotes of very high quality were seized throughout the Union. Versions have emerged: they are printed in the USA, or the attackers colluded with Goznak employees.

On April 12, 1977, Viktor Baranov was detained by police at the collective farm market in Cherkessk while trying to change a 25-ruble bill. He had 77 more such banknotes with him. When Baranov was asked who he was, he replied: “I am a counterfeiter!”

From the very beginning, Victor did not hide anything from the investigation. He willingly showed investigators his barn and described in detail the technology for producing counterfeits. At first, experts did not believe that he did everything alone. But investigative experiments confirmed: Baranov did not need accomplices.

Finally, Baranov’s talent was recognized! One of his inventions was later even introduced at Goznak. But the inventor himself ended up in Butyrka prison. By the way, while awaiting trial, he wrote recommendations for the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on improving the protection of Soviet money.

Baranov refused to defend himself during the trial. He completely sincerely admitted to what he had done. It was established that the “inventor” printed about 30,000 rubles, but only a small part of these funds was put into circulation by him.

For cooperation with the investigation, Viktor Baranov was sentenced to a relatively mild punishment - 12 years in prison. In fact, the death penalty was imposed for producing counterfeit money on a large scale...

In 1990, Viktor Ivanovich Baranov was released from prison. Deciding to start life from scratch, the former prisoner took up entrepreneurship - he founded a perfume manufacturing company, got married again, and also continued to invent.

On April 12, 1977, at the collective farm market in Cherkessk, a young man approached an Adyghe seller with a request to exchange two 25 ruble bills. At another time, the merchant might have fulfilled this request, but just the day before, police officers warned market regulars about the need to report all such cases.

The merchant politely refused, and as soon as the man left him, he hurried to the policemen on duty at the market. They caught up with the unknown man and checked his documents. They turned out okay: Baranov Viktor Ivanovich, born in 1941, resident of Stavropol. But when the man was asked to show the contents of the briefcase he was in his hands, almost 2,000 rubles were found in it in brand new 25-ruble bills.

Baranov was taken to the department, where when asked who he was, the man calmly replied: “I am a counterfeiter!” This is how the name of the most brilliant manufacturer of counterfeit money in the entire history of the Soviet Union became known.

Excellent student, artist, party leader's driver

Viktor Baranov fell in love with money as a child, but not at all in the sense that most citizens put into this expression. The boy collected a collection of old banknotes, which seemed to him to be real works of art. Vitya was interested in how they were made, but things didn’t go further than simple curiosity.

Victor did well at school, attended art school, painted pictures and made excellent copies of masterpieces of painting, such as, for example, “Morning in pine forest» Shishkina.

After seventh grade, Victor went to Rostov-on-Don to study at a construction school. Within a year, he mastered the specialty of a parquet carpenter and wanted to become a pilot. He started parachuting at the flying club and made several jumps. Baranov wanted to go serve in the Airborne Forces, but his mother dissuaded him from this intention. As a result, having completed the DOSAAF driving course, conscript service Viktor Baranov served in the automobile battalion.

The driver's profession turned out to be good choice- Subsequently, Baranov got a job in the garage of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU, driving the top officials of the region, including the future Secretary General of the party, and then the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev. Moreover, this happened at a time when Baranov was already working hard to create his own technology for producing money.

“I was one hundred percent sure that nothing would work out”

But we got ahead of ourselves a little. Viktor Baranov’s bright head was always full of ideas. After the army, he many times offered various improvements and inventions to various enterprises. He was praised, but his proposals were not implemented in life.

A rather strange situation developed in the USSR - on the one hand, the state in every possible way promoted the activities of inventors and innovators, but at the same time most of their projects remained “dead weight”. Enterprises focused on fulfilling the plan did not want to waste time making any changes to production technologies, fearing that this would lead to a temporary decrease in the rate of production.

Baranov was offended by the lack of demand for his own ideas. And then, for the sake of self-affirmation, he decided to take up the development of a technology that he had been interested in since childhood - the production of banknotes.

“When I started making money, I was one hundred percent sure that nothing would work out. But it was interesting to test my capabilities,” he recalled many years later.

The task was actually very difficult. Today, information about various technologies can be found on the Internet, but half a century ago the World Wide Web did not exist. Baranov went to the library in search of the necessary literature, but there was no necessary books on such a sensitive issue.

But the inventor was stubborn and persistent. He obtained the necessary information bit by bit, made a special trip to Moscow, to the library named after. Lenin, to study the printed literature available there. In Stavropol, he visited the printing house of the Stavropolskaya Pravda publishing house, where he saw a letterpress cliche.

The inventor developed the technology for producing rubles for 12 years

Baranov was an absolute unique person, completely unlike the artisans who draw banknotes almost with pencils on their knees. Theoretical preparation and experiments took him 12 years. During this time, he mastered the professions of a printer, artist, photographer, chemist, and engraver at a professional level. He managed to master the most complex technology for producing paper with watermarks, and Baranov’s products turned out to be of higher quality than Goznak’s products, and the inventor had to deliberately worsen the quality so that his banknotes would not be conspicuous.

He created a laboratory in the barn of his own house. Neighbors visited there periodically and did not see anything suspicious - Baranov hid the most important parts of his equipment in disassembled form under the shelves.

In 1974, Viktor Baranov’s printing press was put into operation. His first products were about fifty 50-ruble bills. The counterfeiter put them into circulation and became convinced that the majority did not distinguish his products from those produced by Goznak.

After this, Baranov began producing 25 ruble banknotes. He explained this decision to the investigators as follows: a 50-ruble note was inferior in terms of security to a 25-ruble note, and he was not interested in profit, but in mastering production techniques.

Soon Baranov achieved his goal - his 25 ruble bills became almost indistinguishable from real ones and were easily sold to him in the markets.

According to the counterfeiter's calculations, he needed 30,000 rubles for this.

The intelligence services suspected the CIA and Goznak employees

He exchanged his products in the markets, receiving Goznak banknotes in his hands. Baranov gave his wife only “state” money for expenses.

No matter how good the inventor’s banknotes were, employees of the State Bank of the USSR managed to establish that we were talking about a fake, albeit of the highest quality.

By 1977, 46 counterfeit banknotes of fifty-ruble denominations and 415 counterfeit banknotes of twenty-five rubles were discovered throughout the country.

The case was taken under special control. Special attention was addressed to Goznak employees - a suspicion arose that one of the professionals might be involved in the production of banknotes. Another version suggested that the stuffing of a large batch of banknotes was a CIA special operation to undermine the economy of the Soviet Union.

Soviet detectives knew how to work. At first it was established that all fakes have a single source of origin. Then it became clear that the center of production was Stavropol, where the largest number of counterfeits were discovered.

The ring around Viktor Baranov was shrinking, and, most surprisingly, he knew about it. Being freelancer OBKhSS, he took operatives on raids Alexandra Nikolchenko And Yuri Baranov, who at that time were already searching for the “gang of counterfeiters.” But, as Viktor Baranov claimed, he did not intend to ask the police about the details of the search, considering it unacceptable to “use friendly relations in one’s favor.”

By April 1977, the counterfeiter decided that it was time to curtail his activities. He dismantled the equipment, intending to take it around the outskirts of Stavropol and scatter it in the swamps. But an unsuccessful attempt to sell a few more banknotes in Cherkessk prevented these plans.

“Cash notes are close to genuine and difficult to identify.”

After Baranov’s arrest, investigators refused to believe that he had established money production alone. It was believed that the former driver of the regional party committee was a small fry who took everything upon himself in order to shield the “gang leaders.”

But after a printing press of an original design was found in a barn at his home, as well as five notebooks describing many years of research, Baranov was taken more seriously.

A group of experts flew from Moscow to Stavropol, in front of whose eyes he created watermarks on paper, rolled letterpress and intaglio printing, cut the sheet and applied the treasury number with a numberer.

The experts flew back to Moscow with Baranov, who, once in the capital’s pre-trial detention center, spoke a lot and willingly about his developments and technologies. Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR Nikolai Shchelokov I received a 10-page letter from him with recommendations on how to protect money from counterfeiting.

Baranov also talked with a Goznak technologist, who issued the following conclusion: “The counterfeit banknotes of 25 and 50 rubles produced by V.I. Baranov are externally close to genuine banknotes and are difficult to identify in circulation. That is why this counterfeit was very dangerous and could cause distrust of the population in genuine banknotes.”

It is unlikely that the technologist was delighted with Baranov - it is unpleasant to realize that you, who has the capabilities of an entire state behind him, can be defeated by a self-taught person with a laboratory in an old barn. Nevertheless, part of the original developments of “counterfeiter No. 1” was then introduced at Goznak.

In prison, Baranov led amateur performances

In the Soviet Union, producing counterfeit money was considered a serious crime, and many counterfeiters paid for it with their lives. This fate could well have befallen Viktor Baranov.

But the court took into account everything - the fact that Baranov cooperated with the investigation, and the fact that he acted alone, and not as part of a criminal group, and the fact that the volumes of banknotes produced were relatively small (33,454 rubles, of which 23 were sold 525 rubles).

As a result, Viktor Baranov was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

In the correctional labor colony of the city of Dimitrovgrad, Baranov was in charge of amateur performances, which regularly took first place in competitions among similar institutions.

When most of the sentence had passed, the counterfeiter was transferred to serve the remainder of his sentence in the Ural village of Kolva, not far from Solikamsk. Here he surprised everyone by creating a unique portrait Lenin measuring four by nine meters, which was visible for several kilometers.

In 1990, Viktor Baranov returned to Stavropol. The country was changing, and the inventor, paying tribute to the times, went into business - the production of women's perfumes and linen fragrances from natural oils. Baranov’s products were original and of high quality, but they could not withstand competition with cheap Chinese consumer goods.

“You can print dollars as easily as brewing coffee”

Journalists who periodically come to Baranov always ask the question: why didn’t he go abroad, where, thanks to his developments, he could legally earn millions. The inventor shrugs his shoulders in response and says that money as such has never interested him. Their only value lies in the ability to invent something new.

An amazing thing, but also new Russia Victor Baranov's inventions were most often dismissed. His technologies seemed too sophisticated and abstruse to businessmen seeking to make a profit here and now.

Once Baranov was asked why, given his talent, he only made Soviet rubles and not American dollars. The main counterfeiter of the USSR grinned and replied that he was simply not interested: “Dollars can be printed at home as easy as brewing coffee.”

Viktor Baranov is a unique personality in the history of Soviet crime. He managed, single-handedly and in a handicraft way, to launch the production of counterfeit banknotes, which were extremely difficult to distinguish from real ones. Who is he - a criminal or a brilliant artist-inventor?

Inventions that no one needs

Viktor Ivanovich Baranov was born in 1941 in Moscow, into a family of officials. Later, his family moved to live in the Stavropol Territory. The boy became interested in paper money in early childhood. He even began collecting a collection of antique banknotes.

Vitya studied well not only in secondary school, but also in art school. It is interesting that he not only drew talentedly, but also made high-quality copies of famous paintings.

Printing press in a barn

To find the information he needed, Victor traveled to Moscow to the Lenin Library. He set up the “workshop” in a shed in the courtyard of his own house. The first 50-ruble bills that Baranov printed on the machine he assembled were superior in quality to those printed at Goznak. Therefore, we had to deliberately degrade the workmanship to make them look real.

Having “issued” about 70 fifty-ruble bills, Victor took up 25-ruble banknotes. This banknote was the most secure, and Baranov was curious whether he would be able to copy it.

Not a single living soul knew about Baranov’s “hobby.” He was an exemplary family man, worked as a driver in the garage of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU, and at one time even drove Mikhail Gorbachev, who then held the post of regional committee secretary... True, the neighbors noticed that Victor spent too much time in the barn. But those who sometimes looked there could only contemplate an ordinary metalworking machine and equipment for photo printing. Baranov kept the money printing machine disassembled under the workbenches.

Victor spent only a small amount of printed banknotes - as a rule, he used them to purchase new tools and equipment. His family lived quite modestly; there was not even a TV in the house. True, during all the years of “production” they made one major acquisition - they bought a Niva car.

Detention and new life

April 12, 1977. Cherkessk. Kolkhoz market. The Adyghe salesman had just told the police how a few minutes ago a buyer had approached him with a request to exchange twenty-five-ruble notes. Traders were asked to pay attention if someone offered quarter or fifty dollars on the market? So he converted. Yes, of course, he will show the buyer. This is the one with the briefcase.

Victor Ivanovich Baranov

The documents of the suspicious buyer turned out to be in order: Viktor Ivanovich Baranov, a resident of Stavropol. But the police couldn’t even dream of how he ended up with cash in order. Viktor Ivanovich had 1,925 rubles in quarter notes in his briefcase. These 77 banknotes became for Baranov what 33 irons were for Professor Pleischner - a sign of failure.
- So who are you? - the investigator asked him when the police brought the owner of the suspicious money to the police station.
“I am a counterfeiter,” answered the king of counterfeiters.

This man is still rightly considered consummate master for the production of counterfeit banknotes. At one time, his criminal talent literally shocked Goznak specialists, party and police chiefs of the USSR. Today Viktor Baranov huddles in a room in an ordinary dorm with his wife and little son. And he continues to bring his unexpected inventions into reality, but now they are exclusively law-abiding.

The first counterfeit banknotes

From the point of view law enforcement agencies, this story began in the mid-70s. By 1977, in 76 regions of the USSR, from Vilnius to Tashkent, 46 counterfeit banknotes of the fifty-ruble denomination and 415 of the twenty-five-ruble denomination were identified, which, according to experts, had a single source of origin. Exclusively high quality counterintelligence made counterintelligence suspect the CIA, which, of course, could easily print rubles in a factory way in the USA and then distribute them through agents to the USSR. Along with the spy version, the traditional version was also checked - it was assumed that the counterfeiters received technology directly from Goznak. More than five hundred employees of the enterprise were under round-the-clock surveillance by the KGB for almost a year, until a repeated examination established that Goznak had nothing to do with it - just someone in the country was too well versed in the process of printing money.

Counterintelligence regretfully abandoned the idea of finding American sowers scattering banknotes in the USSR, and the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs focused on searching for a group of counterfeiters within the country.
Gradually, it was possible to determine that in the south of Russia, high-quality counterfeits appear more often than in other regions. Then the circle of searches narrowed to the Stavropol region, where in three months of 1977 86 counterfeit twenty-five-ruble bills were immediately identified. And finally, thanks to the vigilance of the Adyghe seller, the first, as the security forces believed, member of the criminal group was captured.

Detention

It must be said that at the time of his arrest Baranov was... a freelance employee of the Stavropol OBKhSS. As a driver, Viktor Ivanovich took two security officers on raids to all sorts of “grain places” - senior lieutenant Alexander Nikolchenko and major Yuri Baranov (namesake - Author). And it had to happen that at the time of the arrest the senior leader was in Pyatigorsk, where he was just catching the notorious elusive counterfeiter! I found out that he was caught in Cherkessk, and received an order to deliver the captured man to Stavropol. Imagine the opera’s amazement when he saw his partner in front of him!..

“I knew that Yura and Sasha were looking for me, but I never asked them a question... I would never use our friendly relations"- admits Baranov.

“I decided for myself a long time ago,” says Baranov, “if they catch me, I won’t twist and turn. I never lied to the police." The police did not know about this then, however, and considered Viktor Ivanovich a courier for counterfeiters, who decided to take all the blame on himself in order to shield his accomplices. Because one person cannot produce counterfeit money of such impeccable quality!

“I was taken to Stavropol as a general,” recalls Baranov. “There were two traffic police cars with flashing lights ahead.”

Personal printing house and treasured press

There he immediately led the police to his barn, where a search revealed a compact printing press, stacks of printed money and five notebooks describing many years of research. On the same day, a report was placed on the desk of Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchelokov, and the very next morning a group of Moscow experts flew to Stavropol.

During the investigative experiment, Viktor Ivanovich, in front of distinguished guests, created watermarks on paper, rolled letterpress and intaglio seals, cut the sheet and applied the treasury number with a numberer. By the end of the performance, there were no longer any skeptics left in the room. Everyone believed in a miracle and that the wizard needed to serve a decent amount of time.
After which, by decision of the Chief investigative department The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR added a hundred more similar cases to criminal case No. 193 regarding the discovery of counterfeit banknotes of twenty-five rubles in denomination, where it all began. In the USSR people were also sentenced to death for lesser crimes.

Interest in money

Vitya Baranov developed an interest in money as a child, when he began collecting a collection of old banknotes. But he came to the conclusion that you can make money yourself much later...

In Stavropol, where the future criminal genius studied at a regular school, he was always on good standing from teachers. Until the fifth grade, Vitya Baranov was an excellent student, and his behavior was always exemplary. Among his favorite school subjects was drawing... The guy went to art school, painted beautiful sunsets... And best of all, he made copies of famous paintings - “Alyonushka” by Vasnetsov, “Morning in pine forest» Shishkin and others.
After the army, Victor worked at one time as a freight forwarder in the Stavropol regional party committee. And twice he even drove Mikhail Gorbachev home from work at night - at that time the third secretary of the Komsomol committee.

“When I started making money, I was one hundred percent sure that nothing would work out. But it was interesting to test my capabilities,” recalls the Stavropol “Kulibin”.
He worked on the banknotes for 12 years. During this time, I thoroughly studied as many as 12 printing specialties - from engraver to printer. For three years he “invented” the watermark himself, and for two years he “invented” intaglio printing ink. I studied textbooks for printing students, even went to Moscow, studied at Leninka rare books“in his specialty”... He had to do a lot by trial and error.

The inventor locked himself in his barn on Zheleznodorozhnaya Street in Stavropol and worked literally day and night. The fruits of this work can be seen today in the Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The whole room is occupied by Baranov’s “exhibition”, which was transported to Moscow in no less than two KamAZ trucks!

Financial genius and his achievements

The forgery genius is especially proud of the solution he invented for removing copper oxides during etching. On this task for a long time all the printers of the world fought. Terribly labor-intensive and painstaking work! And Baranov built a reagent from four components - two poison copper, two remove its oxides. Everything takes a minute or two... Goznak worked for 14 years on this etching agent, which received the unspoken name - “Baranovsky”.

First money

The first banknote that Baranov made was a fifty-ruble note. One to one with the original in the most small details. The only thing, out of respect for Lenin, the counterfeiter made the leader twenty years younger. And this was not noticed in any bank!

In parallel with his study of coinage, Baranov observed the behavior of sellers in the markets in order to understand how money “moves.” For example, fishmongers always take banknotes with wet hands; meat traders often have blood on their hands. Caucasians willingly accept new crisp banknotes. As a result, Baranov added 70 fifty dollars, after which he decided to give up on them. Tired of candy wrappers.

However, Baranov immediately lost interest in the money he made. He was not interested in wealth - he simply needed funds to implement other bold projects. He calculated that this would require about 30 thousand rubles. No sooner said than done!

But the trouble was when Baranov took him to Crimea to change his money, bought two kilograms of tomatoes from one granny, walked away and only a few minutes later realized that he didn’t have a suitcase with him. He returned, and the old woman was like that, taking with her money for a good house...

The bungling inventor had to turn on the printing press again, which he was about to disassemble and scatter in parts into different ponds.
Baranov did not even think about counterfeiting the currency. But during one of his trips to the capital, he bought a dollar from a dealer - for his collection. Having looked at it more closely, I was convinced how easy it is to make money...